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They might have considered postponing were we playing a division rival who are scheduled to come back again.

Killjoys.

That’s because it’s not an enclosed dome as much as it is a stadium with an umbrella on it. And just as I was typing this, Jake picks off the runner at third!

Looks like Margot kind of short-armed his effort on that hit over his head. He may not have ever gotten it anyway, though,

I know you’re not that guy at all, but this post is stopping just short of complaining that players simply aren’t loyal to their teams and their fan bases. I know you and i are aligned on the nature of one-way loyalties between teams and players. I believe most players today, unlike Trout, are explicitly concerned about their so-called “personal brand”, and everyone wants their personal brand to be associated with winning. That’s good for the Business of You and your wealth and fame profiles both in the sort and long terms. It’s a basic form of selfishness that, honestly, I can’t fairly criticize, since a selfish player’s goal of making himself a winner generally dovetails very neatly into the goals of the team he’s on and their fans to become a winner as well. The only time it doesn’t comport is when a player loudly toots his own while his team is losing, or he makes decisions on the field that is wrong for the game situation but potentially better for his stats and his brand.

This post has me considering something I really hadn’t before: perhaps a key reason football and basketball have become so much more popular than baseball during the past half century is that watching these posts on TV has shown people how much superstars leads to winning in those sports, while in baseball, there’s the Ernie Banks problem: Hall of Fame career wasted on a perpetual loser. Had Ernie played on the Yankees, he’d certainly be celebrated today as one of the historically all-time great personalities in baseball history, to a far greater degree than he is today. “Let’s Play Two” would practically have been a Yankees trademark phrase.

I might hypothesize in response that the opioid epidemic is strongly correlated to the individualism issue, and the epidemic obesity is strongly correlated to the anti-intellectualism about diet and exercise.

Now I am convinced this was meant as a DEI rollback. I'd bet that once there was video of multiple white fans proving they didn't see it that way, that's when the team caved. I don't think even RC Jr pointing it out would have been enough.

Exactly. We are all at risk of the same thing. If this stands, you will know for sure that your mere citizenship will not help you, and, by extension, your mere whiteness would not help you. But there is one thing that would definitely help you, and that's your effusive public embrace of MAGA principles.

I say this without irony and without sarcasm: that's the down side of democracy.

I have no insight into anything along these lines, but I have also wondered whether he is just far more comfortable toiling in anonymity—that is, relative to his otherworldly talent which alone would have made anyone else a global superstar—in a market that reflects his conservative values, which may be why Anaheim is such a good fit for him. He is a quiet guy who nerds out over weather facts, and that's not the kind of thing that naturally attracts millions of TikTok followers. Assuming this is true, I also wonder whether avoiding the bright lights that fame would bring is ever more important than winning at all costs, because if winning were his one and only objective, as it is for so many other players, he'd've pushed for a trade to a contender years ago. Again, I freely admit this is baseless speculation, but I do find it interesting that in this clip, he doesn't mention winning as his goal, as you might expect when someone asks, "what are your expectations for the season?"

This is political and cultural not just because of the decrepit state of the US health system, which is bad enough taken on its own, but also, this is related to both a cultural anti-intelleculism that practically shames people for knowing about and embracing concepts like good nutrition and exercise, and to a culture that stresses individualism over community, a word too close to communism for some.

My bottom line is, until someone gives me examples of how other countries are taking advantage of the US that should lead to worldwide tariffs in response, I won’t believe it’s actually happening.

That’s OK, I’m a hitter, so I was never getting an invite anyway. 😁

Fun with Pythagoras, SSS edition: The Reds have scored more runs than they have given up. They are 3-7. The Rangers have scored fewer runs than they have given up. They are 8-2.

I think we can all guess what the Trump regime considers to be their real crime.

At least ankle injuries are relatively predictable.

So, nothing. I see. I was genuinely interested to see whether you would come up with any examples because I myself didn’t know of any. But it looks as though there aren’t any after all. At least not until someone can come up with some upon request. You also seem to have an awful lot to say about what I am (apparently some party hack) and what I want to believe. And not what I declaratively believe, but what I want to believe, which is some cute mind-reading ****. Not to put too fine a point on it, the other guy is what people who run out of things to say about the actual issues talk about.

Almost certainly not how the Tigers wanted him to approach it. Because that’s how he was approaching it for his three seasons with the team, and we all saw how much viscerally helped him. I think it’s more likely that someone had a CTJ talk with Tork, something clicked, he buckled down to review the info, made the adjustments that he made, and improved his approach and results; than that the team said you know what, we’re use gonna leave you alone and let you figure it out by yourself, he made his adjustments all by himself, and improved his approach and results.

I’m coming around to the camp of if you put your bat on the ball and you get on base, that’s a hit. Make them all earned runs. Really, it was more important when 30% of runs resulted from errors. Now it’s less than 10%. It doesn’t really matter that much any more.

He’s got the earnest scream for social media memes down pat.

I thought we wanted him for six years? If we really wanted him, we would have offered him his opt out after one year. Just sayin’. But I still think he wouldn’t have taken it, because he wouldn’t put up the same pinball numbers with us he will with Boston so he can take another bite of the apple next winter.

And I was among the loudest of them here. I want to know what the click moment was for Tork. Remember he was quoted basically saying he’s going to hit the way he wants regardless, implying that he was not going to take advantage of the data science the Tigers offer their players. I’d like to have been a fly on the wall at the moment he snapped out of that. I’m guessing it would have been early spring training in a CTJ meeting with AJ.

That’s what’s going to make the Yankees series so interesting: our immovable object of a pitching staff versus their irresistible force of a hitting roster.

If it weren’t for Sweeney hustling to beat that double play throw, it’s two outs and the game is tied on Tork’s hit … maybe. Sweeney created the conditions that led to the specific outcome we saw today.